Information and Imagery from Ukraine

October 2015

On Thursday, October 29th, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree creating a state-controlled ‘youth movement’ for Russian students. Officially called the ‘Social-State Movement of Schoolchildren,’ it appears to be rapidly drawing comparisons with the Soviet-era ‘Young Pioneers,’ a Soviet state youth league for secondary school students, controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and designed to prepare legions of young people for membership in the Communist Youth League, or ‘Komsomol.’

Italian Fascist Youth in the 1930s

But the ‘Social-State Movement of Schoolchildren’ is not communist or even socialist. It is nationalist. The Putin regime touts Russian national glory as its public rallying point, and although it mixes Soviet hagiography into its message – confusing the people by honoring Soviet communist (and thus anti-Russian nationalist) leaders such as Lenin and Stalin – the propaganda message is at its core unquestionably nationalistic and imperialistic. With the Russian economy in crisis, Putin has turned to a mix of militarism and patriotic nationalism to buy time as living standards plummet around him and his clique.

A poster for the Hitler Youth: ‘Youth Serves the Führer. All 10-Year-Olds into the Hitler Youth’

The combination of nationalistic imperialism and state-controlled ideological youth leagues is an essential component of fascism. The ‘New Pioneers’ are not a vanguard of socialist revolution. They are the subjects of Russian nationalist ideological indoctrination. They are the nucleus of a new Russian chauvinism and bigotry, in which Russian national identity – ethnicity, language, religion, history – are to be borne aloft as superior to all others. The ‘New Pioneers’ are 21st-century Russia’s version of the Hitler Youth of the Nazi German Third Reich or the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (Italian Youth of the Lictor) of Fascist Italy. They are the latest sad development in Russia’s post-Soviet, internal political trauma. As such, a better name for the new youth movement might be the ‘Putler Youth.’

A ‘Nashi’ rally in central Moscow

The ‘New Pioneers’ are not without precedent. From 2005-2011, a state-funded nationalist Russian youth organization called Nashi (‘Ours’) was active in trying to recruit Russian youth into supporting the Putin regime. It reached the apogee of its visibility and activity during the one-term puppet-presidency of Dmitry Medvedev, when Vladimir Putin served formally as prime minister but in fact pulled the strings of state. As Putin was returning to reclaim the presidency, Nashi faded out of view, harmed by the widespread perception (never properly investigated) that its leader ordered an assault on the Russian dissident journalist Oleg Kashin, who was left with a metal plate in his head as a result. The attack and severe beating of Kashin was caught on video by a CCTV camera at night.

It was another sad demonstration of the perils of state-controlled ‘youth movements’ personifying ‘patriotism’ for the public. Youth leagues such as Nashi and the ‘New Pioneers’ are meant to be a medium for engaging a generation of Russians who might otherwise become delinquents or criminals in today’s Russia. Unfortunately, their members end up perpetrating criminal acts behind the badges and emblems of the organizations themselves.

Poster for the National Socialist German Student Union

Perhaps fortunately for Europe and the rest of the world, Russia is decrepit and broken-down nearly a quarter-century after the USSR’s demise. Unlike Germany under Hitler in the 1930s, Russia under Putin does not look capable of transforming itself into a major economic powerhouse. Its industry is shoddy and inefficient. Its goods are low quality. It is still mostly an exporter of raw materials and unfinished goods. Russians don’t appear to have the collective energy that Germans exhibited in the 1930s, building not only the autobahn and a competitive industrial infrastructure, but also a national war machine capable of terrorizing Europe and beyond. The outside world can feel relieved that Russia is inefficient and unproductive, and would have trouble posing the kind of danger to the civilized world that Nazi Germany did. But we can observe ordinary Russians with pity and dismay. They should feel little relief or comfort about their country’s metamorphosis into a run-down version of a fascist state. For them, the light at the end of the tunnel is still out of sight.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the establishment of a ‘Russian Movement of Schoolchildren,’ the tasks of which are the same as those of the [Young] Pioneers in the USSR. The document was published on the official web portal of legal information.

Putin with members of ‘Nashi’

The movement is being created to, inter alia, ‘facilitate the formation of a person based on the intrinsic values ​​of Russian society.’

The founder of the organization is the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh). As an intermediary between the movement and the government of Russia, it will direct the main activities of the movement and issue assignments.

‘Nashi’ rally in Russia

For co-operation with the Ministry of Education, and the governments of Russia’s regions and municipal organs, the ‘Russian Children’s and Youth Center’ will be created under Rosmolodezh.

The budget for the needs of the movement will be allocated from the funds of the Ministry of Education. The decree entered into force today.

Russian fascists march during May Day festivities in 2010

The initiative was supported by the Ministry of Education. ‘The ministry is ready to provide all necessary preparatory and methodological assistance in the organization of the movement in all regions of Russia,’ Minister Dmitry Livanov was quoted as saying by [Russian state news agency] RIA Novosti.

It is worth noting that today marks exactly 97 years since the establishment of the Communist Youth League (Komsomol).

Rosmolodezh previously organized the youth forum ‘Seliger’ and coordinated the pro-Putin movement ‘Nashi’. In addition, in April, it was reported that the agency had acted as the focal point for the development of the program of patriotic education of citizens for the years 2016-2020. To do this, the structure of the agency created a special department: ‘Rospatriotcenter.’

On Sunday, October 25th, two large central European neighbors – Poland and Ukraine – hold nationwide polls. As Poland elects a new national parliament, Ukraine will conduct local elections to replace mayors and municipal councils. The Ukrainian polls are potentially profoundly transformative, and the civilized world hopes they result in fairer and more transparent local politics that bring Ukraine closer to the democratic community of Western states. Ukraine’s closest and most important regional ally – Poland – stands to gain from such a scenario perhaps most of all in the short term. The two countries are important to each other and to the region on a number of levels. Apart from a shared history going back centuries, linking them culturally and socially, Poland and Ukraine today both confront a resurgent, aggressive Russia on their borders.

Troops from Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine in formation as part of the trilateral Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian Brigade in 2014

Thus far Ukraine has benefited from Polish diplomatic and material support in its war with Russia, and a joint Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian force has been established to inject heavy symbolic value into bilateral relations. Stronger pro-Western local bodies and officials in Ukraine should theoretically contribute to even stronger relations with Poland.

But behind the public show of solidarity there are problems between the two countries going into Sunday’s elections, and these are playing into the hands of the revanchist regime in Moscow. Difficulties in Polish-Ukrainian relations stem largely from their respective differences in the treatment of history. The two nations clashed bitterly during the period when Nazi Germany and the USSR were dividing Poland and other central European territories between them, deporting and exterminating the subject populations. Since the Republic of Poland had not supported Ukrainians in their independence movement between the two world wars, Ukrainian nationalists at the time viewed Poland as an enemy and oppressor. Some Ukrainians allied with the Third Reich to try to defeat the Soviet regime in Ukraine, and in doing so fought and killed Poles. Many Poles, meanwhile, found themselves fighting on the side of the Soviet Red Army trying to defeat Germany, which did not even allow for the nominal sovereignty of Poland. Fighting and killing was intense on both sides, and the official Soviet bloc history of the region and period portrayed all anti-Soviet Ukrainian fighters as simply fascists or criminals (or both). In many cases, the Ukrainians who sided with Hitler against Stalin had memories of the Soviet terror-famine (Holodomor) and other unspeakable Stalinist atrocities in their country, and they probably did not believe Hitler could possibly be worse.

Members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in 1943

Yet the post-Soviet Ukrainian government has officially lionized the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and its most prominent leader, Stepan Bandera, as a symbol of resistance to Soviet domination, and sadly, many Poles resent this attitude because the UPA killed many Poles. Compounding problems, even though the official Ukrainian commemoration of the UPA is not meant to be directed against current-day Poland, Ukraine has not been very tactful, adept or straightforward in clearing up its western ally’s misunderstandings.

Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the Institute of World Policy, analyzes the problem in an article for Evropeyskaya Pravda called ‘How We Are Losing Pro-Ukrainian Poland.’ She indicates, credibly, that the passage of a law by the Ukrainian parliament recognizing the UPA as freedom fighters on the very day that Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski addressed the national legislature in Kyiv in April 2015 may have contributed significantly to Komorowski’s loss in the presidential election.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski (left) with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in the Verkhovna Rada, 9 April 2015

She interprets the passage of the UPA resolution almost immediately after Komorowski had ended his visit to Ukraine as a ‘slap in the face’ to the Polish leader, leading ultimately to the victory of Andrzej Duda, a politician whose ‘Law and Justice’ party is purportedly less inclined to tolerate such apparent Ukrainian indifference to Polish national feelings and sensibilities. An indication that the Putin regime is capitalizing on fallout between Warsaw and Kyiv is that the article was picked up in an ecstatic tone by the English-language Kremlin-propaganda mouthpiece Sputnik News, in an anonymous opinion piece entitled ‘Kiev Hysterical Over Prospect of Losing Poland Due to Historical Bad Blood.’ Ms. Getmanchuk summarizes the main points in the current crisis of relations, outlining the challenges for Ukraine in salvaging vital relations with its most important neighbor in the current crisis.

In Poland, as in Ukraine, elections are being held on October 25th. We have local; they have parliamentary. After these, Poland will finally be able to get out of a protracted election campaign, which has clearly not benefited our relations.

But the more you talk with our Polish partners, the more you delves into the discourse on Ukraine, the stronger the fear becomes that even after the dust of electoral passion settles, our relationship with Poland will be different.

Maybe not worse, but different.

It can’t fail to be surprising that in Ukraine few people notice the disturbing trends visible in Poland over the past year.

The Wishes of the Voters

Many still believe that support for Kyiv is something akin to Warsaw’s lifelong duty. They say that Poland is bound to support Ukraine under any government, in either capital.

We’ve really grown accustomed to there always being a political and social consensus in Poland to support Ukraine, and we don’t think about the fact that sometimes this consensus is based on anti-Russian rather than pro-Ukrainian sentiments.

We take for granted that the Poles should be the first to protect any Ukrainian interests in the European Union.

We, happily rubbing our hands, closed a chapter in the history of Ukrainian-Polish relations under the heading of ‘historic reconciliation,’ counting it as one of the international success stories.

We stopped working on the relationship too early, basically, and instead we romantically trusted in ‘eternal love’ between our two countries.

But the time for romance has passed – fortunately or unfortunately.

The author’s meetings with Warsaw politicians and diplomats prove that the relationship has obviously regressed.

Instead of focusing on how to fulfill the agenda, we’re seeing attempts to delve into the past, to put relations on the level of historical heritage.

No, on the surface everything is more or less okay.

The schedule of our ambassador, Andriy Deshchytsia, does not accommodate all the events and meetings at which they would have wanted to see and hear him, without regard to the results. This year there were three meetings of the prime ministers. In New York Poroshenko finally met with Andrzej Duda, and by the end of the year they may meet two more times.

But the problems become evident when discussions begin. Warsaw responds to public demand, but it doesn’t contribute to positive relations with Kyiv.

The electoral filter has ceased to work to our advantage.

In these parliamentary elections, excessively open support for Ukraine works as a minus, not a plus.

This became apparent in May, when rock musician Pawel Kukiz took third place in the presidential election. He claimed 21% of the vote despite his openly anti-Ukrainian rhetoric.

Of course, he received this support not because of his anti-Ukrainian promises, but then again they didn’t turn out to be an obstacle in his path to success.

There are several reasons for such changes.

Red-Black

Firstly, Poland is very concerned that the issue of the UPA, Bandera and the red and black flag is no longer regional and marginal after the Revolution of Dignity.

As Polish colleagues say, this is now ‘not our dialogue with Galicia, but our dialogue with Ukraine.’

Monument in Volyn, Ukraine, to Poles killed by the UPA in 1943

For ordinary Poles, UPA is one of five key associations with Ukraine (the survey was conducted by order of the Institute of World Policy). And for voters of the late Lech Kaczynski’s party, ‘Law and Justice’ (PiS), which is preparing for victory in this election, this is of greater concern than for the voters of Donald Tusk’s ‘Civic Platform.’

Yes, I know, in Ukraine, it was customary to assume that the real pro-Ukrainian party was ‘Law and Justice.’ There were a lot of happy words when PiS candidate Andrzej Duda was elected president.

But in fact, PiS today is no longer what it was in the days of Lech Kaczynski.

People who understand the strategic importance of Ukraine have mostly been relegated to the background. Some of them will not even get into the Sejm this time.

Those whose sentiments and approaches resemble the so-called ‘armchair societies’ are coming to the forefront now.

These are the people for whom the formula of ‘we will forgive and ask forgiveness’ is not enough. I’m not sure that some of them would be satisfied even if the Ukrainian president went down on his knees, as Willy Brandt did in his time.

And one of the representatives of PiS, who is predicted to hold a key post in the future government, warned unambiguously in the closed part of the recent ‘Ukraine-Poland’ forum: ‘Ukrainians should understand that revitalization of Bandera images harms the image of Ukraine as much corruption.’

Now PiS does not want to lose a single vote, and especially not because of Ukraine. For that reason, therefore, it is running away from Ukrainian topics like from a fire. And that’s why Andrzej Duda was in no hurry to meet with Poroshenko, to say nothing of receiving him in Poland.

But the problem is not in the election campaign. In Warsaw, they say that the current approach of Duda and PiS toward Ukraine in general is not a tactic, but a strategy.

‘The period of unconditional assistance to Ukraine is passing,’ say respected Polish commentators in one voice on both sides, whether simply informing or warning.

And the fact that this has happened is to a considerable extent the fault of the Ukrainian side.

A Slap at Komorowski

In my opinion, Ukraine has not yet realized what happened during President Bronislaw Komorowski’s last visit to Ukraine, namely, the adoption of a law on the recognition of UPA as fighters for independence immediately after his speech in the Verkhovna Rada.

According to my sources, Komorowski had the opportunity to choose the last foreign trip before the presidential elections – either Ukraine or Britain, where, as we know, a large Polish community lives.

Komorowski made a bid for Ukraine.

And in Kyiv he received not only a slap, but a humiliation.

Some serious Polish experts say that the visit to Ukraine cost him approximately 1.5% of the votes in the presidential election.

We cannot say that because of Ukraine Komorowski was not re-elected, but we did ‘help’ a little.

The question is therefore appropriate: was the vote for these laws on the day of his visit an accident or a provocation? If it was a provocation, then by whom?

The answer to this question should be found if there is a desire to work with Poland so that the Polish president is not afraid to go to Kyiv in anticipation of the next – in their view – humiliation.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski addresses the Verkhovna Rada on 9 April 2015

The case of Komorowski has shown that Ukraine must be careful, because sincere support can twist the knife in the back. This is what Lech Kaczynski felt with Yushchenko and the famous ‘Bandera – Hero of Ukraine’ decree; this is what Bronislaw Komorowski felt.

And, as they say in Warsaw, it was one of the reasons why Duda ‘could not’ meet with Poroshenko immediately after the election.

The Russian Factor

Today, there is a risk that an emphatically different vision of the Ukrainian past could significantly alter Warsaw’s support for Ukraine’s desired future.

It is possible that the idea of a country that ‘glorifies terrorist methods of struggle’ having a dubious right to be in the EU or NATO is still outside the mainstream, but it is being discussed with increasing frequency.

There is still much to do so that Polish questions inspired by history do not resemble demands on Ukrainians to give up their national heroes – and so that Poles at all levels realize that the surge of sympathy in Ukraine for the UPA and Bandera has no anti-Polish content.

But first it is necessary for Ukrainians to work on the mistakes of the very recent past.

Secondly, since last year serious concerns have taken root in the Poles that the more Poland supports Ukraine, the more powerfully it ricochets to hit back at Poland.

A year ago, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz made the exponential statement that in the Ukrainian question Poland should behave ‘like a sensitive Polish woman: our security, our country, our home and our children should come first.’

Economic relations with Russia and the harm caused to the economy because of the conflict surrounding Ukraine – this is a new factor in the Polish debate on Ukraine.

It is turning out to be pretty interesting: while in Germany, pragmatic political expediency won the debate with respect to the economy of Ukraine, in Poland, economic feasibility is competing with politics.

Besides which, migrants from Ukraine are beginning to be perceived as a threat. Just one detail: according to a survey of the International Organization for Migration, 55% of Poles perceive Arabs as a threat, and 35% – Ukrainians. And this is despite the fact that it is the Poles – along with the Georgians and Belarusians – who generate the warmest feelings among Ukrainians (survey of the ‘Rating’ group).

Leader or Participant?

Władysław II Jagiełło was simultaneously Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland from 1386-1434. He laid the foundations of the Polish-Lithuanian union.

In Poland there has been an attempt to somehow adapt two well-known doctrines to external political realities. The first is the so-called Jagiellonian, with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe. The second is the so-called Piast, which envisions strict linkage to Western Europe, especially Germany.

The Piast approach was consolidated under the government of the ‘Platform.’ Today, Duda is credited with the desire to restore elements of the Jagiellonian strategy.

Some see Poland as strong when it is a leader, number one in the ‘coalition of the weak’; others, when it is only a participant, but in the ‘coalition of the powerful.’

Mieszko I was a member of the Piast dynasty who ruled from about 960-992 and is considered the creator of the Polish state. His baptism in 966 brought Poland into the community of western Latin rite Roman Catholic states of Europe.

In all his years in power, Tusk tried to prove that Poland was much more powerful when it played in the ‘coalition of the powerful,’ in one team with Germany, than when it tried to create its own coalition in Central and Eastern Europe.

For Ukraine, this approach has worked as a ‘plus’ more than once. Donald Tusk had good personal relations with Angela Merkel, and his role on the issue of sanctions at some stage was important, though not very visible from Kyiv.

However, PiS, on the contrary, plays on the hurt feelings of those Poles who do not like the merger of the Polish voice with the voice of Brussels and Berlin, who see a natural role for Warsaw as a powerful regional leader.

Hence the statements of Duda on Baltic-Black Sea alliances and the ambitions of Poland with regard to participation in the Normandy format.

And by the way, finally – really important for Warsaw is the ‘trick’ of disposability.

This is the question that even Ukrainian diplomats recognize as ‘really difficult’ in the bilateral dialogue.

In fact, this is the first time that Poland has not participated in the resolution of a major crisis concerning Ukraine. At least, not formally.

Although this bid of Warsaw’s doesn’t always seem reasonable.

At least, I haven’t managed to glean from Poles the exact added value of Warsaw’s participation in the negotiation format on resolving the conflict in the Donbas.

* * * * *

Finally, there is another factor that deters many Polish politicians. This is the diversity and systemic quality of Ukraine’s internal problems.

Poroshenko and Duda meet in September 2015 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York for a low-profile chat

The surge of interest in Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity and constant presence in the information field haven’t only opened the eyes of Poles to Ukrainians’ alarming struggle against Russian aggression.

It has, at the same time, [drawn attention] to the scale of Ukraine’s shortcomings, in particular, to how deeply and widely entrenched our corruption is.

There is frank disappointment in the fact that years go by, revolutions happen, and Ukraine never comes to anything good.

The fact that Ukraine is not Poland has already become clear, and not just to the experts.

Those of us who both know something of Ukraine’s history and wish Ukraine well tend to pray that this time – in the current conflict with Russia – history’s tendency to repeat itself will somehow fail. Moscow’s legacy in Ukraine is not pretty. Despite having by far the largest country in the world in terms of territory, the Russians apparently don’t feel they have enough land and resources, and resource-rich Ukraine is thus a persistent target and victim of Russian imperial war and expansion. This attitude manifests itself not only in Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, but also in Russia’s covetousness toward Ukrainian agriculture and heavy industry in general.

The Antonov An-225, the largest airplane in the world, is manufactured in Ukraine.

It isn’t that Russia doesn’t already have enough high-quality land to feed its 145 million people, or enough space on which to build a large industrial base of its own. Russia has far more than enough of both. It is that Russia’s corrupt rulers view the effort required to cultivate and develop their existing resources to yield as much per hectare as Ukraine’s – and to diversify and develop Russia’s own industrial potential – as too much trouble. They are content for Russia to remain (in the words of US Senator John McCain) ‘a gas station masquerading as a country,’ with an underdeveloped infrastructure and gross domestic product roughly the size of Spain’s. They can’t be bothered to do the work, and besides, too many Russian oligarchs have their talons dug deep into Ukraine’s sovereign wealth. So Russia wreaks dismemberment, destruction and death on Ukraine, to try to bring its smaller neighbor to its knees. There is an old joke (perhaps Polish) about this phenomenon. A poor Russian peasant with a rich neighbor is asked whether he would like to be living as well as his wealthy compatriot next door. He replies that, no, he would rather see his neighbor living as poorly as he is.

What is happening to Ukraine is a continuation of the Soviet and Russian imperial policies of the past. Just as the despotic Russian rulers Peter I, Catherine II and Nicholas I treated Ukraine as a slave nation, and just as the tyrannical Soviet founders Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin viewed Ukraine as deserving of mass murder and terror, so Putin seeks to destroy the Ukrainian state through war and subversion. Decent people everywhere want to see this behavior end, to see Russia once and for all brought into the community of modern, civilized nations. We want this not just for Ukraine and Ukrainians, but for Russia and its people, trapped in a slavish mindset, revering the ‘strongman’ in their backward, centralized, Asiatic despotism.

‘The whole world is our enemy! We believe Putin!’

The strongman – Putin – entertains an adolescent fantasy. He sentimentalizes the era of Stalin and Hitler, portrayed in Russian history books as a time of great glory for Russians and the USSR. and covets all territories of the former Soviet Union, envisioning them as part of his new ‘Eurasian’ space, Russia’s ‘sphere of influence.’ If, in practice, such ‘influence’ were anything but retrograde, destructive and pernicious, the rest of the world might tend to greet it with less repulsion and more apathy. As it is, the civilized world stands with Ukraine’s aspirations to sovereignty and democracy, hoping that its rich, fertile black earth will not be drenched in yet more blood at the hands of the Russian aggressor. If there is to be any hope for the vast, Eurasian landmass, Ukraine must emerge from this conflict sovereign and whole. Nothing less than the fate of all Europe depends on it.

Following is a translation of an article about Moscow’s aggressive, anti-Ukrainian, imperialist actions during the period when the Bolsheviks were recapturing lost territories of the Russian Empire from 1917 to 1922, to bring them into the new USSR by force. Many like to think of this period as ideologically driven, as a time when committed Communists were building the new workers’ state for the good of all. Unfortunately, the new Soviet leaders were primarily representatives of urban elites, and the urban centers in which they lived in relative comfort at the time (compared with Russia’s terrorized, starving rural population) were themselves in danger of mass starvation. So they looked to fertile, agriculturally rich Ukraine as the solution, and they launched wave upon wave of war and terror on the new democratic state of Ukraine, to bring it under Russian control. These ‘Communists’ looked upon Ukraine with the eyes of Great Russian chauvinists, just as Putin acts in the role of Great Russian chauvinist today.

Left to right: Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Putin

The Russian president does not view Ukraine as a ‘real country,’ as he once confided to US President George W. Bush, any more than the Bolsheviks did. Putin is essentially a Russian street hoodlum and representative of the post-Soviet mafia, and his mindset is no different with regard to countries such as Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova than that of the tyrant Stalin, whom he admires. Despite being a Georgian by ethnic origin, Stalin epitomized ethnic Russian great-power chauvinism in his behavior, fancying himself the ‘Tsar of All the Russias,’ and acting accordingly. And so it is with Putin, who wants to subdue Ukraine, to bring all of its tremendous economic potential under the Russian boot. The history of the formative years of the USSR indicate that Russian foreign policy has not progressed very far in the last hundred years. It is still a chauvinistic, backward and brutal exercise, and the rest of the world can only watch in impatience and disgust as this latest round of Russian imperial drama plays itself out.

Under the Communists’ omnipotence, the struggle for bread, coal, iron and ore was waged from a position of great-power chauvinism.

Leon Trotsky at the zenith of power. It was then, in 1919, when – along with Lenin, the other member of the tandem of Bolshevik leaders – he claimed: ‘Ukraine is Russia’s supplier of grain, coal and arms… All of it must be taken without mercy.’ (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

The Bolsheviks had their own ideas about Ukraine – as a granary and raw-materials appendage of Soviet Russia – something the UNR (Ukrainian People’s Republic) couldn’t accept. The struggle for bread, coal, iron and ore went on from a position of great-power chauvinism – under the conditions of an omnipotent Bolshevik Party. This is how it was.

Instead of joining. The history of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917-1920 is rich in dramatic events reflecting the search for a national political elite, ways of strengthening democratic statehood with the participation of different segments of the population, protection against internal and external enemies, international recognition, and an understanding with Soviet Russia.

The Bolshevik government’s relations with the Ukrainian People’s Republic that was proclaimed at the beginning of November 1917 were strained. As these relations were clarified, a fundamental question had to be answered: What did Bolshevik Russia want from democratic Ukraine?

Leon Trotsky with Bolshevik troops during the Civil War

‘Take the most energetic revolutionary measures to deliver bread, bread and bread! For God’s sake!’ Already the content of this Leninist quotation allows us to start developing answers to this question. It should be recalled that the Bolsheviks conceived of Ukraine as a granary and raw materials appendage of Soviet Russia, an idea the UNR rejected.

Ukrainian troops loyal to the Central Rada (1917)

So Lenin and Trotsky began preparing a revolt to topple it. But their attempt failed. Ukrainianized troops of the former tsarist army surrounded the conspirators in November 1917, disarmed them, and sent them back to Russia.

In the UNR, the Bolsheviks saw a real contender in the struggle for power in Ukraine. An ideological war unfolded to discredit the Central Rada, and the idea of ​​convening the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets was exploited for the purposes of replacing it through new elections. The signal for this was the demand of People’s Commissar for National Affairs of Soviet Russia Joseph Stalin to hold a referendum on self-determination in Ukraine.

People’s Commissar of Nationalities Joseph Stalin in 1917

It was stated that the CPC [Council of People’s Commissars] of the Russian Federation [the Bolshevik regime’s government or cabinet of ministers ~ Ed.] would be reconciled only with a government established on the basis of the referendum’s results. At the same time, the authorities in Ukraine should belong to the Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. They, with or without the Central Rada, should convene the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets to satisfy the will of the masses. Only in this way would the CPC be able to recognize the authority of the Central Rada.

People’s Commissar of the State Bank Georgy (‘Yuri’) Pyatakov

To put pressure on Kyiv, Petrograd used financial leverage. It stopped the cash flow to Ukraine, creating social tension. When the government of the UNR appealed to Yuri Pyatakov, who at that time held the post of Commissar of the State Bank (Gosbank) in the Russian capital, with the demand to provide 90 million rubles to cover indebtedness to the workers, he said that the provision of financing to Ukraine would be subject to the recognition of Soviet power in the country and the admission of their representative in the capacity of Commissar of the Kiev Branch of Gosbank.

The Bolsheviks were annoyed by their defeat in the re-election of members to the Central Rada in early December 1917 at the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets, convened in Kyiv. Their delegates, finding themselves in the minority, were forced to travel to Kharkiv – where at that time the regional congress of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Basin was taking place – in order to unite with the congress and declare themselves the legitimate All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets.

Leaders of the ‘People’s Secretariat’ of Soviet Ukraine, based in Kharkiv (clockwise from top left): Yuriy Kotsiubynsky, Vladimir Zatonsky, Yevgenia Bosch and Voldemar Aussem. Bosch committed suicide in 1925. Aussem, Kotsiubynsky and Zatonsky were executed as enemies of the USSR in 1936, 1937 and 1938, respectively.

12 (25) December 1917: The Bolshevik Congress of Soviets in Kharkiv declared Ukraine a Republic of Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and declared it a federal part of the Russian Republic. The All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee was elected and formed the first Ukrainian Soviet government – the People’s Secretariat – immediately recognized by the CPC of Soviet Russia, which became the main prerequisite for the interventionist policy of the Russian Bolsheviks against Ukraine.

A striking example of the expansionist intentions of Soviet Russia was the appeal of its government, written by Lenin and Trotsky, ‘To the Ukrainian people with an ultimatum to the Central Rada.’ In this openly insincere document, the Bolsheviks declared their recognition of everything ‘regarding the national rights’ and ‘national independence of the Ukrainian people,’ ‘immediately, unconditionally and without restrictions.’

However, the Rada was accused of conducting – under the guise of national phrases – a ‘completely bourgeois policy, which has long been evident in the non-recognition of Soviet power in the Rada of Ukraine.’ The accusations against the Rada for disorganization, disarming Soviet troops and support of General Kaledin were fabrications, attempts at finding a way to go to war with democratic Ukraine.

It was precisely this that was stipulated in the ultimatum. It was noted that, if in two days it did not receive a satisfactory reply to the accusations, the ‘Council of People’s Commissars will consider the Central Rada to be in a state of war against the Soviet authorities in Russia and Ukraine.’

The General Secretariat of the Ukrainian People’s Republic was a social-democratic government that tried in vain to reach an accommodation with the Soviet regime in Moscow.

Having received the ultimatum, the General Secretariat immediately sent a response to Moscow pointing out the contradictory statements in this document. ‘It is impossible to recognize the right to self-determination, including secession, and at the same time to crudely violate that right,’ noted the response. The General Secretariat did not accept the form of political governance in Soviet Russia, which ‘generally does not give rise to envy,’ because of the ‘gross wantonness and destruction of freedom,’ and ‘does not consider it necessary to repeat this sad attempt on the territory of the Ukrainian people.’

This answer did not suit the government of Soviet Russia. It was decided to bring the Central Rada ‘to its knees,’ to destroy the UNR by force of arms, and to begin the first Bolshevik intervention against Ukraine. Vladimir Lenin in his directives to [Vladimir] Antonov-Ovseyenko and [Sergo] Ordzhonikidze explained the real reason for such attention to a neighboring state: ‘For God’s sake, take the most energetic and revolutionary measures to send bread, bread and bread!!! Otherwise, Peter [a nickname for Petrograd ~ Ed.] could croak [slang for ‘die ~ Ed.]. Especially trains and troops. Collection and dispatch. Accompany the train. Communicate daily. For God’s sake!’

Ukraine is sometimes referred to as the ‘Breadbasket of Europe.’ It hosts some of the most fertile soil in the world.

Indeed, the fate of hungry proletarian Russia depended on Ukrainian bread. As discussed at the meetings of the All-Russian Congress of Councils of People’s Commissars in May and June 1918, ‘Ukraine is the reservoir from which Great Russia has drawn its grain stocks,’ and ‘it is precisely here that the most important portion of residues accumulate.’

If even three of the southern regions of Ukraine were to disappear from Russia, said one of the speakers, then the Soviet government would lose 55% of the harvests of wheat, 28% of rye, 20% of oats and 26% of barley. Besides, the attendees frankly declared, in Ukraine ‘the most important portion of the residues that we threw on the markets of Western Europe has accumulated.’

Trotsky addresses Red Army troops

To execute Lenin’s desperate instructions to Ukraine, the 30,000th Group of the Red Army was transferred from the north, and by the end of December 1917 had taken Kharkiv, Poltava and Chernihiv. The UNR’s proclamation of independence further intensified the aggressive impulses of the Bolshevik army, which at the end of January 1918 launched an offensive against Kyiv. On February 8th (new style calendar), after the shelling of the central part of the city, the massacre of civilians began with extreme brutality and lasted three weeks. The Central Rada and the Ukrainian Government were forced to leave the capital and go to Zhytomyr, and then to Volyn (Sarniy).

Representatives of independent Ukraine conclude a peace treaty with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire on 9 February 1918.

At this time in Brest-Litovsk, Soviet Russia was conducting negotiations with Germany and its allies, initiated by the Bolsheviks on 1 December 1917. From December 12th, representatives of the UNR began to participate in the negotiations as an independent party. On 9 February 1918, a peace treaty between the UNR on the one hand, and Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria on the other was signed. The State of the Quadruple Alliance recognized the independence of Ukraine and pledged to give her armed assistance in the fight against the Bolsheviks. However, during the first half of 1918 the Central Rada was to supply Germany and Austria-Hungary with a large number of agricultural products.

In accordance with the treaty, German and Austrian troops went to Ukraine in March 1918 and established an occupation regime, which ensured the presence of a nearly half-million-strong army for the export of food and raw materials. A few Red military units left the borders of Ukraine. The Germans arrived in Kyiv, and with them the Central Rada and its government. So ended the first Bolshevik intervention against Ukraine.

Bust of Nikolay Shchors in Chernihiv, Ukraine. Shchors commanded the 2nd Ukrainian Brigade (composed of the Bogunsky and Tarashchansky regiments) against the forces of the UNR in 1918. The monument was removed in April 2015.

The path to bread is broken. But for this it was necessary to carefully prepare a second intervention against democratic Ukraine. The Bolsheviks began this work in the autumn of 1918. The Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR, on November 11th, ordered the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic to prepare the troops to march on Ukraine within ten days. On November 17th, by a general resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) and the CPC of the RSFSR, a governing body called the ‘Revolutionary Military Council of the Group of Forces of the Kursk Direction’ (V. Antonov-Ovseyenko, Stalin, V. Zatonsky, Yuri Pyatakov) was established. The very same military force consisted of two Ukrainian (Bogunsky and Tarashchansky) [regiments] and several Russian divisions of a total number of 22,000 soldiers, who were waiting for an order to begin the offensive against the UNR.

All power was in the hands of the Revolutionary Military Council. However, to cover up its activities, on 28 November 1918 a Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of Ukraine was established, headed by Pyatakov and located in the city of Malaya Sudzha [in the Kursk District of Russia, once part of Ukraine ~ Ed.]. It received immediate recognition from Russia and announced the transfer of all power in Ukraine into the hands of the Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. On 20 November 1918, its manifesto on the overthrow of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky was published.

Ukrainian nobleman Pavlo Skoropadsky, who headed a 20th-century Ukrainian monarchy – the Hetmanate – for seven months in 1918. An able military commander and former general of the Russian Imperial army who had repelled the first Bolshevik invasion of Ukraine, he fell from power soon after the Central Powers capitulated in WWI.

In a confidential letter to Red Army commander I. Vatsetis, Vladimir Lenin explained the real purpose of the formation of the puppet government, ‘… The circumstances have a good side, which makes it impossible for the chauvinists of Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to consider the movement of our troops to be an occupation, and creates a favorable atmosphere for the further advance of our troops. Without this circumstance, our troops in the occupied areas would be delivered into an impossible situation, and the population would not meet them as liberators.’

People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin

The Soviet offensive in Ukraine began in late November 1918 in the directions of Kharkiv and Kyiv from a neutral zone in the region of Malaya Sudzha. In answer to the question of the head of the UNR government, V. Chekhov, on why Russian troops had moved into Ukraine without declaring war, People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs of Soviet Russia [Georgy] Chicherin replied that this action was not being carried out by the armed forces of his country, but the army of the Directory [the Ukrainian government cabinet, also referred to as the ‘Directorate’ – Ed.] on the one hand, and the independent forces of the Soviet government of Ukraine, on the other. Soviet Russia ignored the diplomatic efforts of the Directory, which wanted to arrange a conflict at the time of its delegation’s negotiations tion with Chicherin. The announcement by the UNR government on 16 January 1919 of Soviet Russia’s war could not influence the war’s course of events.

Pro-independence demonstration in Kyiv, January 1919

On 3 January 1919, the Red units captured Kharkiv, where the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of Ukraine – fully dependent on Moscow – arrived. On January 6th, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic [Ukrainian SSR] was proclaimed. On February 5th, the Reds entered Kyiv, where the Soviet government moved on February 8th. By May 1919, the Red Army had taken control of most of Ukraine within the Russian Empire. The Directory and its government were forced to move to Vinnytsia, and often changed their place of residence after that.

Together with an active offensive of Soviet forces against the armed forces of the Directory, the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of Ukraine intensified its activities, Its chairman, Christian Rakovsky, appointed to this position by the RCP(b), made a declaration on the unquestioning execution of all his orders and decrees, to the extent that the government was not independent and ‘is not going to create their own independent command, calling the Revolutionary Military Council of the Kursk Direction the ‘Revolutionary Military Council of the Ukrainian Soviet Army,’ ‘so that it is possible to speak about the Soviet Army in Ukraine, not about the invasion of Russian troops.’ ‘That is, to carry out the policy,’ said Rakovsky, ‘that was started with the creation of the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government.’

Christian Rakovsky (in bow tie) with Bolshevik financier Leonid Krasin to his right. Rakovsky was executed by the Soviet NKVD as an enemy of the USSR in 1941.

In January 1919, the government of Soviet Ukraine declared a program of political and socio-economic reforms in the country ‘to bring the socialist revolution to an end.’ There were clearly defined prospects of the development of the Ukrainian village because ‘the main task of land policy is the transition from individual to comradely farming’ through farms, communes, cooperatives, etc. Under the slogan ‘Land to the peasants!’ they initiated just such forms of ‘comradely land use’ as the best way to achieve socialism in agriculture, causing mass indignation of the rural population.

As in the RSFSR, the policy of War Communism was implemented in Ukraine. Already on 11 December 1918 the government was given the power to carry out food preparations in all areas captured by the Red Army, which meant the transition of the struggle for bread to coercive methods. On 5 February 1919, the Law of the USSR ‘On Seizure of Grain Residues’ was published. A plan for delivery of grain to the state was brought to each village. It was envisaged that 800,000 tons of grain would be received by 1 June 1919. Consequently requisitioning was developed, while crops that had grown in 1919 and previous years were considered ‘residual.’

For the sake of bread and food for hungry Russia, requisitioning groups of workers formed in Moscow and Petrograd were sent to Ukraine. Several of these militarized units of Party, Komsomol [Communist Youth League] and state employees were established by local Soviet authorities in Ukraine as well. The Bolsheviks were convinced that the country had huge surpluses of bread, and that ‘it is necessary to give them to the hungry Russian worker, and give him as much as he needs.’ No attention was paid to the fact that Ukraine simply did not have these mythical stocks of grain.

As they implemented the policy of War Communism in Ukraine, the Russian Bolsheviks inflamed an insurgent war against themselves in the Ukrainian countryside. The peasantry, doomed to starvation, did not want to hand over the remnants of its bread. Its dissatisfaction with the Bolshevik-Soviet regime was growing rapidly. In March-April 1919, peasant demonstrations against the policy of War Communism began in Ukraine under the slogans ‘Down with the Commune!’ and ‘For the Soviet regime – without the Communists!’

Nestor Makhno (seated 2nd from right), leader of the anarchist ‘Black Army,’ initially allied with the Reds but switched sides to join the anti-Bolshevik rebellion.

If at the beginning of 1919 the rebel forces led by Atamans [Nestor] Makhno, Grigoriev, Green had allied with the Bolshevik forces against the Directory, recognizing the anti-peasant, anti-Ukrainian policies of Russian Bolshevism, by May 1919 they opposed the Soviet regime. The rebel peasant movement became massive, covering the entire territory of Ukraine.

The Central Committee of the CP(b)U [Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine] evaluated the peasant insurgency – which manifested itself with particular force in summer and autumn of 1919 – as a manifestation of the kulak counterrevolution, which had to be ruthlessly suppressed. In July 1919, the Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defense adopted a resolution ‘On the Suppression of the Kulak and White Guard Mutiny in Rural Areas,’ which provided for a number of measures directed against peasant uprisings.

Lenin in Red Square

Notable policies introduced included: esprit de corps among the inhabitants of villages or districts, repression for possession of weapons, use of military blockades, and so on. Regular military units were active against the rebels, but they were unable to suppress the resistance. In December 1919, Vladimir Lenin named the regions with the greatest surpluses of bread, and Ukraine, where the peasantry opposed the Soviet regime, which was on shaky ground there.

Tsarist Gen. Anton Denikin, a Great Russian chauvinist and leader of the White Army in the Russian Civil War

On May 4 1919, Denikin’s army launched an offensive on Ukraine in two directions: Kyiv and Odessa. The Council of People’s Commissars of Russia and Ukraine announced the mobilization of workers and peasants under the slogan, ‘All for the fight against Denikin!’ The mobilization increased the number of soldiers of the Red Army. On May 16th, the head of the Revolutionary Military Council Leon Trotsky arrived in Ukraine and, on the orders of Lenin, initiated the ‘hot iron’ method in the regular army to eradicate ‘guerrilla warfare,’ to strengthen the morale of the Red Army.

However, the administrative-command and repressive measures of Trotsky did not improve the position of the Red Army. Under pressure from Denikin on 24 June 1919, the Whites entered Kharkiv; on the 28th – Yekaterinoslav. On August 1st, the Reds surrendered Poltava; August 18th – Mykolaiv; August 23rd – Odessa. On August 30th, Soviet government agencies were forced to leave Kyiv. Soviet power in Ukraine had been eliminated. Somewhat later, on 2 October 1919, the Central Committee of the CP(b) was dissolved. Most of the territory of Ukraine came under the control of Anton Denikin.

Ukrainian POWs of the former Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army swear the oath of allegiance to Ukraine on 3 August 1919.

Thus ended the second Bolshevik intervention against Ukraine. Russian Bolsheviks ‘did not sufficiently understand the most important thing about the Ukrainian revolution. Just as in their first entry into Ukraine, this time they also ignored local living conditions, summed up the whole movement according to Russian standards and began to force life into their paradigm. They peaked before that paradigm shattered, and they had to flee from the waves of life that flowed through these narrow and distorted confines.’

‘We really need to return Ukraine to Russia.’ The population of the republic became convinced that the occupation regime established by the Whites in Ukraine was even more reactionary than the previous Bolshevik-Soviet one had been. On the seized territories of southern Ukraine, estates and land were returned to landowners, and in the village a tax on food was established that was no less in volume than the Bolshevik requisitioning. This policy pushed the peasants away from the new government. In the autumn of 1919, rebel forces opposing Denikin consisted of no less than 100,000 soldiers. The White Army was faced with the threat of total disaster.

The scope and massive scale of the rebel movement in Ukraine against the White Guard occupation regime created favorable conditions for the start of Soviet Russia’s third intervention against democratic Ukraine. Previous lessons of the Bolshevik occupation and policy of military communism were considered by the Bolsheviks the benefit of themselves. Before the onset of the next agitation and propaganda machine ran at all turns to camouflage the true essence of the intervention.

Victims of famine caused by War Communism in Byrzula (1921)

This is a fairly convincingly evidenced by ‘Trotsky’s secret instructions regarding the occupation of Ukraine,’ which the UNR troops found near Byrzula in the captured headquarters of a Soviet division. This document had already been published abroad by February 1920. The instructions are the epitome of the Pharisee, the imperial policies of the Bolsheviks. The author openly warned agitators: ‘In Ukraine, that which is spoken of openly in Russia can only be whispered into an ear and then not spoken at all. The ability to remain silent – this is also a form of eloquence.’

People’s Commissar of War Leon Trotsky

Trotsky expressed hope: ‘In preparation for the third campaign in the Ukraine, the Council of People’s Commissars firmly hopes that you do not confound the land of a Russian. To facilitate your work, I consider it my duty to give you some friendly guidance. It’s no secret that it wasn’t Denikin who forced us to leave the territory of Ukraine, but a grandiose rebellion that incited the Ukrainian peasantry to rise up against us. The Ukrainian peasant hated the communes, the Cheka, the food requisitioning units and the commissar-Jews to the depths of his soul. In him awoke the spirit of Cossacks and Haidamaks that had been sleeping for hundreds of years. This terrible spirit that boils and rages – as the Dnipro does on its doorsteps – forces Ukrainians to work miracles of courage. Only boundless credulity and acquiescence ruined all the gains of the Ukrainians every time.’

The main task of the Soviet regime was the consolidation of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat and the alliance between the working class and the toiling peasantry.’ The struggle for bread, coal, iron and ore continued from a position of great-power chauvinism under the conditions of the Bolshevik Party’s omnipotence.